"What bargain could you make that I would not agree to willingly?" he asked.
"Perhaps some day I shall make one with you—or want to—that you will not like," she said, "and then I shall remind you of this day and your gallant speech."
"And I shall say then as I say now. I will make any bargain with you, so long as it is a bargain which benefits us both."
"Ah, you are a Normand, you hedge!" she laughed, but he was serious.
They walked all around the laiterie, and all the time she was gay and whimsical, and to herself she was saying, "I am unutterably happy, but we must not talk of love."
"Now you have had enough of this," Lord Bracondale said, when they were again in view of the house, "and I am going to take you into a forest like the babes in the woods, and we shall go and lose ourselves and forget the world altogether. The very sight of these harmless tourists in the distance jars upon me to-day. I want you alone and no one else. Come."
And she went.
"I have never been here before," said Theodora, as they turned into the Forest of Marly. "And you have been wise in your choice so far. I love trees."
"You see how I study and care for the things which belong to me," said Hector. It gave him ridiculous pleasure to announce that sentence again—ridiculous, unwarrantable pleasure.
Theodora turned her head away a little. She would like to have continued the subject, but she did not dare.